Tighten Pawnshop Laws To Help Victims, Prevent Further Crimes

April 14, 1998

Try to find a flaw in the reasoning of Fort Lauderdale Detective Jack Gee _ and it's just not there. Pawnshop owners, he argues convincingly, should be subject to the same laws governing stolen property as everyone else.

Who in good conscience or logical thinking could disagree? And who could legitimately find fault with Gee's further statement that if pawnshop operators faced felony charges or had to pay restitution to crime victims for receiving stolen property, they'd do a much better job of policing themselves?

His firm endorsement of a pawnshop reform bill in the Florida Legislature should be echoed by every honest Floridian. It's a relatively mild bill, but has been bottled up in the House Public Safety and Law Enforcement Committee, largely because of unrelenting pressure from pawnshop lobbyists.

Proposed by Rep. Elaine Bloom, D-Miami Beach, the bill would make two changes. One is eminently practical, to allow law enforcement agencies to install computers in pawnshops to ensure immediate transmittal of pawn slip information to local police.

In some parts of Florida, such as Broward County, there already is a computer linkup between pawnshops and law enforcement, which can be automatically cross-referenced to Most Wanted lists and other criminal databases. Statewide, the Florida Sheriff's Association has a system ready to share pawnshop information.

Miami Beach police acted too late, installing a direct linkup to pawnshops after fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered. His killer, Andrew Cunanan, pawned a gold coin eight days before the slaying, using his real name and hotel room number, and gave the required thumbprint. Serial killer Cunanan was on the Most Wanted list and could have been stopped from killing again if the pawn-slip information had been transmitted immediately to police.

Pawnshop lobbyists don't object to computer linkups, but fear the bill's other main component. It would toughen the language of stolen property statutes, putting a heavier but obviously justifiable burden on pawnshop owners.

The wording would be hardened, so that when it was proved a pawnshop owner possessed recently stolen property, there would be more than just an inference he knew or should have known that the VCR or car stereo was stolen. There would be a legal presumption of such knowledge, a stronger tie between crooks and a pawnshop owner.

Similarly, if there is a purchase or sale of stolen property at ridiculously low prices, there'd be a legal presumption the pawnshop owner should have known. How else explain the buying or selling of a $500 stereo system for one-tenth its value?

The bill's provisions, and those in a companion bill pushed by Sen. Walter ``Skip'' Campbell, D-Tamarac, are soundly based and would greatly benefit burglary victims. These provisions would add to the reforms achieved last year by Campbell and others, overcoming many of the odious provisions inserted in a previous law by pawnshop lobbyists and pushed through the legislature by their pawn, Sen. Fred Dudley, R-Cape Coral.

Other reforms also are necessary, including opening records of pawnshop transactions to the public. Reformers also contend pawnshop customers should be required to show proof of ownership, and observe a three-day waiting period, before getting their money from the operators.

Next year those reforms ought to be enacted. This year, the Bloom and Campbell bills should be moved forward quickly and passed into law to protect the thousands of burglary victims in Florida.